It looks like Spring has taken hold in the African Jazz Capitals environs, the Mother City, Cape Town is showing her beautiful colours today, which bodes well for the Summer ahead. Still, it’s going to be another very busy day for me at All Jazz Radio. Here’s what the day looks like;

10h00 to 12h00 – Jazz Rendezvous with Eric Alan and also included is the London Jazz News with Sebastian Scotney & Eric Alan around 11h00 to 11h15

12h00 to 14h00 – The J. B. F. Show with Titilayo Adedokun (Jazz, Blues, Fusion Show) Brand New Show and Presenter

16h00 to 18h00 – The Much, Much More Music Show Compiled and produced by Eric Alan

See I wasn’t kidding but there are still more than a few other tasks added to the workload today. Not complaining though, I just love it, sharing and showcasing the best and the latest new Jazz, Blues, Latin and World Jazz from all corners of the global village. One just cannot miss todays exciting programming on All Jazz Radio today don’t you think?

Gerald Wilson Big Band

We received the sad news of passing of a bandleader, trumpeter, composer, arranger and educator Gerald Wilson. Wilson, aged 96, died on Monday at his Los Angeles home some two weeks after contracting pneumonia. We at All Jazz Radio would like to offer our condolences to his son, guitarist Anthony, the Wilson family and his fans. Here is a link to an obit in the LA Times:

Soul’d Debuts Their High-Energy Sound with Self-Titled Debut Single “Soul’d”

Sould-Single

New single “Soul’d” introduces a new Funk/Smooth Jazz trio of the same name. Soul’d, the band, features GRAMMY®-nominated composer and producer Arun Shenoy, internationally acclaimed flautist Ravichandra Kulur, and groove master Duke Purisima. Their new style of high-energy music has been dubbed “Bansuri Funk.”

ABOUT

What do you call a song that crosses Funk with Smooth Jazz, while also turning traditional instrumentation on its ear? That was the challenge facing producer and composer Arun Shenoy, internationally acclaimed flautist Ravichandra Kulur and groove master Duke Purisima, who formed their trio, Soul’d, in early 2014. Their vision? To merge their diverse influences into a fresh and high-energy contemporary instrumental sound. As the mixes of “Soul’d” (Narked Records, 2014) evolved, the single so clearly captured their combined vision for the trio that Purisima suggested an eponymous debut.

Purisima laughed softly as he explained “We were working on several tracks, but this one really stood out as a perfect example of where we want to go with our music. ‘Soul’d’ captures what we are all about, so I suggested we take the name for our new band, too. You’ve got to feel pretty strongly about a piece to let it stand for you and your band.”

Kulur, an in-demand flautist who performed extensively with the late Pandit Ravi Shankar and daughter Anoushka Shankar, coaxes a whole new sound out of his Indian classical flute, which takes the place of the saxophone or trumpet leads normally heard in Smooth Jazz. Another favourite of Shenoy’s, GRAMMY®- nominated arranger Don Hart, teamed up with the trio, recording the live horn orchestration for “Soul’d” in Nashville. Listening to final mixes inspired the stylistic term Bansuri Funk, referring to the trio’s innovative jazz/funk approach and the traditional Indian bamboo flute, the Bansuri.

Shenoy comments “This new take on things was something I envisioned after working with Ravi on ‘Bliss’. I was instantly taken by the clarity of his playing style, and high-paced fingering techniques, for which he is quite well known by music-lovers and critics alike. I wondered how it would sound to explore all of that in a more East-meets-West jazz funk fusion, and so we went for it.”

The names Shenoy, Purisima and Kulur may ring a bell among World Fusion fans, as the three artists collaborated on Shenoy’s “Bliss”, an Indian World Fusion single that was launched by the Recording Academy via a worldwide “Exclusive First Look” feature at GRAMMY.com in 2013. While Purisima has worked with Shenoy before on the latter’s projects, Kulur and Shenoy met more recently when discovering online that they both hailed from the same district along India’s Western coast.

Art director Roshni Mohapatra lends her unique creative vision for the project’s packaging and visual aspect of the music, which has been brought to life by Rich Lock at Devolution Designs in the UK.